Two Aleknagik men were rescued by friends just in time last week after spending six harrowing hours out on Aleknagik Lake in the middle of a fierce storm.
Allen Ilutsik said he got a text from his brother Bruce Ilutsik when he turned his phone on in the morning around 7 a.m. asking him to call the Coast Guard. Shortly afterward, he got a call from Bruce, who said he was in a boat out on the lake and was unable to get to shore.
Bruce Ilutsik, 28, and brother Grant Ilutsik, 33, woke in the early hours of Feb. 7 to the sound of their boats banging around in the high velocity winds that affected the majority of Southwest and Southcentral Alaska last week. The two brothers rushed out of their home and down to the dock to secure their boats. When they got there, however, they saw that one of the boats had come loose from its fastening and was drifting away out into the lake. The two jumped into another boat and shoved off to go and retrieve the first boat, but the motor failed, leaving the Ilutsik brothers stranded in open water without a working motor. The wind at the time was gusting over 50 mph, and before long, both men were being pushed out toward the center of the lake by large, icy waves created by the strong wind gusts. Allen Ilutsik said they tried to row, but the wind was too strong.
Around this time the Aleknagik VPSO Jason Creasey and another villager attempted to rescue the two men using the city's boat but were unsuccessful, as the thick ice and large waves that separated the Ilutsik brothers from their potential rescuers and almost capsized the VPSO's boat. The Alaska State Troopers, who had been notified of the situation, then contacted the U.S. Coast Guard, who subsequently launched a rescue helicopter out of Cold Bay.
Allen Ilutsik said when he and others heard the Coast Guard response was still several hours out, they organized a group to go and get his brothers. By that time, Bruce and Grant had been out in the cold with minimal outdoor gear on for six hours. Some members of the group were part of the community's first responder team and said despite the fact that authorities were suggesting they wait for the Coast Guard response, they needed to move quickly because of the danger of hypothermia.
"When we found out how long it was going to be, we decided they couldn't wait," Allen Ilutsik said. Ilutsik said several members of the group were longtime outdoorsmen and knew how to read the ice conditions on the lake. They drove around to the side of the lake closest to the boat and a group of eight -- Ilutsik, Aaron Andrews, Randy Tinker, Ben Tinker, Patrick Aloysius Jr., Robert Christensen, Danny Togiak and Robin Chythlook began moving across the solid ice. Initially, they thought they could use some rescue equipment but the wind was too strong to throw a rope to the brothers. So Ben Tinker and Aloysius got in a 10-foot skiff -- the very skiff the brothers were trying to rescue initially, which had since been used by Creasey to get back to shore -- and the group pushed it out over the ice to where the solid ice became broken. Then Ben Tinker and Aloysius Jr. got in the small skiff and worked their way through the ice cakes until they got to the Ilutsik brothers. The stranded men got in the small skiff and the four of them slowly worked their way back to the solid ice edge, he said.
When they got back, Bruce and Grant Ilutsik were very cold, Allen Ilutsik said.
"It was really windy and very cold," Ilutsik said. "We were all out there for about an hour and we all got pretty chilled."
Ilutsik said his brothers had dashed out of the house in minimal gear -- one had on tennis shoes and no socks, another rubber boots and no socks. Only one was wearing a winter jacket, and both were wet and cold and said they had been starting to get sleepy.
"It sounds like they were just going into the second stage of hypothermia," Ilutsik said.
Both were transported to the Dillingham Hospital for evaluation and treatment, but were fine even after spending some six hours in the chilling weather.
Ilutsik said the rescuers wish the community's rescue squad had been notified -- it would have resulted in a quicker response if they had.
"The outdoorsmen up here are really knowledgeable about ice conditions and that sort of thing," he said.
Allen Ilutsik said it is generally a long wait for outside help like the Coast Guard, and villagers are used to taking care of themselves for the most part, especially when it comes to traveling on the lake.
Last year, an elder driving home on a snowmachine went through the ice. Local Ray Andrews saw the accident happen and raced out to help. He took off his heavy clothes at the edge of the ice and dove in, swimming 25 to 30 feet to rescue the elder, Ilutsik said.
One of the biggest miracles of this incident was that Bruce Ilutsik's cell phone stayed operational long enough to make calls for help -- it would freeze up in the cold, and the stranded man would warm it up again and get it working long enough to make a quick call before it died again.
Allen Ilutsik said he's grateful everything turned out like it did.
"Once we were out there ourselves we saw how serious it could have been," he said. "This could have turned out very differently."
This story first appeared in The Bristol Bay Times/Dutch Harbor Fisherman and is republished here with permission.